Philip Kerr

by Bernard Gunther 06 - If the Dead Rise Not (v5)

  . The tickets were hard to get, even for me. Kipnis is a Jew, you see. These days it’s not often you can hear a Jew singing Wagner.” “I imagine Kipnis has one of the least disagreeable voices to be heard in German right now.” “They say Hitler doesn’t approve.” “Where is this opera?” “The German Opera House. On Bismarckstrasse.” “Can you remember the seat numbers? Only, I need to find Herr Reles and give him a message.” “The curtain goes up in an hour. He has a box on the grand tier, stage left.” “You make that sound like a big deal, Franz.” “It is. It’s the same box Hitler has when he goes to the opera.” “But not tonight.” “Obviously.” I walked back into the entrance hall. Behlert was speaking to two men. I hadn’t ever seen them before, but I knew they were cops. For a start there was Behlert’s manner to identify them: he looked like he was speaking to two of the most interesting men in the world; and then there was theirs: they looked indifferent to almost everything he was saying, except the part about me. And I knew that much because Behlert pointed my way. Another reason I knew they were cops was their thick coats and their heavy boots and their body odor. During the winter, Berlin cops always dressed and smelled as if they were in the trenches. Backed by Behlert’s rolling eyeballs, they came toward me, flashing their warrant discs and sizing me up with narrowed eyes—almost as if they hoped I was going to make their day and run for it; that way they could have had a little fun trying to shoot me. I could hardly blame them. A lot of Berlin crime gets cleaned up that way. “Bernhard Gunther?” “Yes.” “Inspectors Rust and Brandt, from the Alex.” “Sure, I remember. You two were the detectives Liebermann von Sonnenberg assigned to investigate the death of Herr Rubusch, in 210, weren’t you? Say, what did he die of anyway? I never did find out.” “Cerebral aneurysm,” said one. “Aneurysm, eh? Never can tell with that kind of thing, can you? One minute you’re hopping around like a flea, and the next you’re lying on the floor of the trench looking up at the sky.” “We’d like to ask you a few questions down at the Alex.” “Sure.” I followed them outside into the cold night air. “Is that what this is about?” “You’ll find out when we get to the Alex,” said Rust. BISMARCKSTRASSE WAS STILL CALLED BISMARCKSTRASSE and ran all the way from the western tip of the Tiergarten to the eastern edge of the Grunewald. The German Opera House, formerly called the Municipal Opera House, was about halfway along the street, on the north side, and was comparatively recent in its design and construction. Not that I’d ever really noticed it much before. At the end of a working day I need something a little less bogus than the sight of a lot of very fat people pretending to be heroes and heroines. My idea of a musical evening is the Kempinski Waterland Chorus: a revue of buxom girls in short skirts playing ukuleles and singing vulgar songs about Bavarian goatherds. I was hardly in the mood for anything that took itself as seriously as opera in German, not after a couple of uncomfortable hours spent at the Alex waiting to be asked questions about the cop I had killed, and then for them to find Otto Trettin—he was in the Zum—and have him corroborate my story. When finally they let me go I wondered if that was the end of it. But somehow I suspected it was not, with the result that I hardly felt like celebrating. All in all it had been quite an experience, which is often the lesson you get from life when you need it least. In spite of that, I was still keen to see who Max Reles might be sharing a box with. And arriving at the opera in time for the interval, I bought a standing pass that afforded me an excellent view of the stage and, more important, the occupants of Hitler’s usual box on the grand tier. Before the lights went down I was even able to borrow a pair of opera glasses from a woman sitting close to where I was standing, so that I might take a closer look at them. “He’s not in the house tonight,” said the woman observing where my attention was directed. “Who?” “The Leader.” That much was obvious. But it was clear that there were others in the box, guests of Max Reles, who were senior figures in the Nazi Party. One of these was a man in his late forties with silver hair and thick, dark eyebrows. He wore a brown, military-style tunic with several decorations, including an Iron Cross and a Nazi armband, a white shirt, a black tie, brown riding breeches, and leather jackboots. I handed back the opera glasses. “I don’t suppose you know who the party leader is?” The woman peered through the glasses and then nodded. “That’s Von Tschammer und Osten.” “The Reich sports leader?” “Yes.” “And the general standing behind him?” “Von Reichenau.” She had answered without a moment’s hesitation. “The bald one is Walther Funk, from the Propaganda Ministry.” “I’m impressed,” I said, with genuine admiration. The woman smiled. She wore spectacles. Not a beauty, but she looked intelligent in an attractive way. “It’s my job to know who these people are,” she explained. “I’m a photographic editor at the Berlin Illustrated News

  .” Still scrutinizing the box, she shook her head. “I don’t recognize the tall one, though. The one with the face like a blunt instrument. Or for that matter the rather attractive girl who seems to be with him. They seem to be the host and hostess, but either she’s too young for him or he’s too old for her. I’m not quite sure which it is.” “He’s an American,” I said. “His name is Max Reles. And the girl is his stenographer.” “You think so?” I borrowed the opera glasses and looked again. I could see no sign that Dora Bauer was anything more to Reles than a secretary. She had a notepad in her hand and seemed to be writing something. Then again, she was looking extremely attractive and hardly like a stenographer. The necklace she was wearing glittered like the huge electric chandelier above our heads. As I watched, she put down the pad and, picking up a bottle of champagne, proceeded to fill everyone’s glass. Another woman appeared. Von Tschammer und Osten drained his glass and then held it out for another refill. Reles lit a large cigar. The general laughed at his own joke and then leered at the second woman’s cleavage. This was worth the cost of a set of opera glasses on its own. “It looks like quite a party,” I said. “It might be, if this wasn’t Parsifal

  .” I looked at her blankly. “Parsifal

  lasts for five hours.” The lady with the glasses looked at her watch. “And there are still three hours of it left to go.” “Thanks for the tip,” I said, and left. I RETURNED TO THE ADLON, borrowed a passkey from the desk, and climbed the stairs to suite 114. The rooms smelled strongly of cigars and cologne. The closets were full of tailor-made suits, and the drawers with neatly folded shirts. Even his shoes were handmade by a company in London. Just looking at his wardrobe, I felt I was in the wrong job. Then again, I didn’t have to look at a pair of shoes owned by Max Reles to know that. Whatever the American did for a living, it was obviously paying him very well. The way I imagined everything did. He had that look about him. A selection of gold watches and rings on his bedside table only served to underline the impression of a man who was almost indifferent to his personal security or the Adlon’s Matterhorn-high room rates. The Torpedo on the table in the window had a cover on it, but the alphabetical accordion file on the floor underneath told me it was getting plenty of use. The thing was full of correspondence to and from construction companies, gas companies, timber companies, rubber companies, plumbers, electricians, engineers, carpenters—and from all over Germany, too: everywhere from Bremen to Würzburg. Some of the letters were in English, of course, and several of these were addressed to the Avery Brundage Company in Chicago, which seemed like it ought to have meant something to me, but didn’t. I raked through the wastepaper basket and smoothed out a few carbon copies to read before folding these and putting them in my pocket. I told myself Max Reles would hardly miss some correspondence from his wastepaper basket, although in truth I hardly cared if, on the face of it, Reles was helping to fix Olympic contracts. In a Germany governed by an ill assortment of murderers and fraudsters, I could see no point in trying to persuade an understandably reluctant Otto Trettin to take on a case that probably involved senior Nazi officials. I was looking for something more obviously criminal. I had no real idea of just what this might amount to. All the same, I t
hought I might recognize this if ever I saw it. Of course, I was motivated by not much more than my own dislike and distrust of the man. These were feelings that had always served me well enough in the past. At the Alex we always said that an ordinary cop’s job is to suspect the man who everyone else thinks is guilty, but a detective’s job is to suspect the man who everyone else thinks is innocent. Something caught my eye. The idea of Max Reles having such a thing as a ratchet screwdriver in a suite at the Adlon seemed a little out of place. It was lying on the window ledge in the bathroom. I was about to conclude that it might have been left there by a maintenance man, when I noticed what was written on the handle: Yankee No. 15 North Bros. Mfg. Co. Phil. Penna. USA

  . Reles must have brought the screwdriver from America. But why? The proximity of four screwheads in a marble-tiled panel concealing the lavatory cistern seemed to command investigation, and these were much easier to undo than perhaps they ought to have been. With the panel removed, I peered into the space underneath the cistern and saw a canvas bag. I picked it up. The bag was heavy. I lifted it out of the cavity, placed it on the lavatory seat, and unlaced the neck. While the ownership of firearms, especially pistols, was restricted in Germany, people with a legitimate reason to own one were permitted to do so, and for a three-mark fee, a weapons license could easily be obtained from any magistrate. A rifle, a revolver, even an automatic pistol could be owned quite legally by almost anyone. But I didn’t think there was a magistrate anywhere in the country who would have signed a permit for a Thompson submachine gun with a drum magazine. The bag also contained several hundred rounds of ammunition, two Colt semi-automatic pistols with rubberized grips, and a folding switch-blade. Inside the bag was another, smaller leather bag holding five thick bundles of thousand-dollar bills featuring a portrait of President Cleveland, and several thinner packets of German marks. There was also a leather wallet containing about a hundred Swiss gold francs and several dozen benzedrine inhalers still in their Smith Kline & French boxes. All of it—especially the Chicago typewriter—looked like prima facie evidence that Max Reles was some kind of gangster. I put everything back in the canvas bag, returned it to the hiding place under the cistern, and then replaced the tiled panel. When everything was exactly as I had found it, I slipped out of the suite and walked back along the corridor, pausing at the foot of the stairs, and wondering if I dared go up to 201 and use the passkey to let myself into Noreen’s suite. For a moment I let my imagination throw me in the back of a fast car and run along the AVUS speedway as far as Potsdam. Then I stared hard at the key for almost ten seconds before dropping it into my jacket pocket and pointing my libido downstairs. Steady on, Gunther, I told myself. You heard what the lady said. She doesn’t like to be hurried. But behind the desk there was another message waiting for me. It was from Noreen and more than a couple of hours old. I went back upstairs and pressed my ear to her door. In view of what was in the note, I might legitimately have used the passkey and let myself in. But German good manners got the better of me and I knocked. A very long minute passed before she opened the door. “Oh. It’s you.” She sounded almost disappointed. “Were you expecting someone else?” Noreen was wearing a brown chiffon peignoir and, underneath, a matching nightgown. She smelled like honeysuckle, and there was enough sleep still in her blue eyes to persuade me that she might want to go back to bed again, only this time with me. Maybe. She hustled me inside and closed the door. “What I meant was, I left that note for you a couple of hours ago. I thought you’d come straightaway. I must have fallen asleep.” “I went out for a while. To cool down.” “Where did you go?” “Parsifal